Global Art Forum The tenth edition of the Global Art Forum, the acclaimed talks programme that accompanies Art Dubai, launched on 16 March (until 18 March). This year’s theme, The Future Was, focuses on how cultural figures such as artists and writers have envisaged and shaped the future. The maverick Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli took part in the first debate, jousting verbally with the Italian curator Germano Celant and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the co-director of London’s Serpentine Galleries, over how artists bolster their practice by looking to history. “We discussed my relationship with antiquity,” Vezzoli says, revealing that both he and Celant will organise exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada in Milan next year that “deal with the recent past”.
Fearless artists Very few press releases open with a blurb as blunt as the following: “Fearless [an exhibition at Total Arts gallery in Dubai] is about 33 artists from Iran who have been working and working regardless of the market’s madness because they are manically obsessed with what they do. These 33 artists have been expressly chosen from various generations (from 25 to 75 years old). There is no age lim it to being an obsessive courageous lunatic working silently.” The show, organised by the Iranian artist Fereydoun Ave, runs simultaneously in Dubai and three galleries in Tehran including Araan Projects (until 30 April). Ave’s comments on each artist are pithy; for instance, he describes Zahra Navaie as “the Gaudi of sci-fi, organic mosaics, full of humour”.
Alserkal Avenue A wealth of pop-up projects will keep collectors, curators and critics preoccupied at the buzzy Alserkal Avenue arts hub in Al Quoz this week. Special events include, for instance, the launch of a monograph dedicated to the “bling bling” Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri. Abdelmonem bin Eisa Alserkal, the founder of Alserkal Avenue, says that he is “looking forward to launching an artist residency programme in 2017, that will for the first time incorporate a space in the UAE where artists can live and work”, an important resource for artists in the Gulf where such outlets are rare. The avenue is also due to inaugurate a new project space later this year for events and exhibitions designed by OMA, Rem Koolhaas’s architectural practice.
Dubai Photo Exhibition Emiratis will be tempted to visit the vast Dubai Photo Exhibition, on show in the Dubai Design District (until 19 March), simply to see works drawn from the collection of the Crown Prince of Dubai. These photographs, seen for the first time, give glimpses into life in the Gulf during the 1960s and 1970s when the United Arab Emirates was founded. A revelatory image by Henry Dallal shows the royal Ruler of Dubai lying alongside a cheetah, which according to the caption demonstrates “his love and attachment for wildlife”. The exhibition, which includes works from 23 countries, was organised by the UK curator Zelda Cheatle, and overseen by the World Photography Organisation.
NYU in Abu Dhabi A show of works by the Syria-born artist Diana Al-Hadid at the gallery of New York University Abu Dhabi is an antidote to the commercial art frenzy in Dubai. There are ten works on display including the cascading, multi-part sculpture Phantom Limb (2014), an array of steel, wood, plaster and metal mesh elements that draws upon antiquity. “A lot of Al-Hadid’s work dissolves the wall or pedestal,” says Maya Allison, the gallery director and chief curator. Indeed, the outline of a fourth-century BC bas-relief called Gravida (The Sleepwalker, 2014) emerges from a hollowed out fresco. “Al-Hadid is inventing a lot of new techniques and is extraordinarily experimental,” says Allison. Lenders include the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Barjeel Art Foundation, also in Sharjah.
